kisses goodbye
by decrescence
Summary: He kisses her goodbye at dawn and reunites with her at dusk, twenty years later. SasuSaku.


The echoes of high, piercing shrieks, raw knuckles meeting flesh, and the slim blades of katana swords clashing ring in Sasuke's ears as Sakura tends to his wounds. He winces when she presses a thin wad of cloth against the deep valley of a bloodied gash sliced across the side of his face, but not because of the gnawing pain emanating from it. It is the memories that hurt the most.

His various cuts and bruises, however how near-_fatal_ they could have been, fail to rouse his worry—his previous battles hadn't exactly been kind to him either, after all. Soon enough, they would heal; the angry constellations of scarlet and purple and indigo blue would eventually calm, pale, and fade, disappearing beneath his skin. Perhaps some would scar, but still, they would heal and no longer pain him.

The haunting thoughts are different. There is no telling when they would leave his mind, no telling _if_ they would at all. And even if one day, the memories were to set Sasuke free from their greedy captivity and possessive hold, they could still revisit whenever they please and remind him of the horrors of the war all over again.

_I've got to leave this place._

The new thought throbs at his temples, pounding like his stunted heartbeat, and for a sliver of a millisecond, a feeling akin to regret flits in the bottom of his chest, but he pushes it away. To him, the word 'Konoha' brings with it too many memories of blood, of tears, of heartbreak, he realizes. He has to rid himself of it all somehow.

Fluidly, Sakura shifts to another wound that appears like crimson lightning trailing the entire bend of his arm, waking Sasuke from his shallow trance. She moves like rain as she stoops, dipping her head slightly to scrutinize its condition with gentle moon-water eyes. Another wavering nuance of guilt pulls him.

But how could he leave her, Sakura, after finally being reunited with her after those lifeless, empty years? How could he break her again, for the _umpteenth_ time, while she had never failed to save him? How could he—?

"I've got to leave this place," he suddenly says aloud, voice jutting into his own thoughts and her silence.

Opal eyes flicker towards him immediately, questioning, wondering, and brighter than the ribbons of newborn sunlight streaming through the hospital room's small window.

"What?" Her voice is a combination of the tinkling of small bells and birds' songs.

"I can't stay here," Sasuke says, fighting to stem his conflicting thoughts. "There's no place for me in Konoha."

_There's no place for me with you._

Sakura straightens, leveling her gaze with Sasuke's. "Don't be ridiculous. Konoha is still your home, Sasuke-kun, you know that."

His chest heaves once, and a sigh escapes his downward-arched mouth. "Konoha is _your_ home, Sakura. Not mine. I don't belong here," He pauses. "I've never belonged here."

Sakura's crystalline eyes soften, but Sasuke looks away, pulls back from her, and forces himself to his feet before she can stop him. Like electric currents, pain instantaneously courses through his body at the sudden movement, and he staggers from the hit. Quickly enough, though, the pulses subside, and he recovers.

"Sasuke-kun!" Sakura urges, as he manages a dry, _"Please—"_

"Don't stop me," He says, refusing to meet her gaze once again. "Just let me go."

Sakura averts her emerald-green irises as well, discretely shifting them to the white and gray tile floor. Her voice is like that of a young child's when she speaks. "I didn't think you would stay," She murmurs quietly. "You've always been so—disconnected, _detached_ from everyone and everything. From me."

"But that's okay, Sasuke-kun; it really is. I understand that feeling, that feeling of wanting to escape, and I'm not going to stand in the way of you and what you want. Just, please, _please, _promise me that one day—"

Between Sakura's words, Sasuke's hands find the bone-white of her ivory cheeks, and his lips fit to hers, softly but longingly, wistfully. He senses her eyes widen and how the bundles of gauze, cloth, and ointment slip from her grasp, but slowly, she melts and caves into him.

Her lips are like rose petals, and she tastes like spring—and it is in that moment that Sasuke decides that is what she _is_. Sakura is the most beautiful of flowers—blossomed, finally,_ blossomed_, no longer the bud she once was. A beauty in the midst of desolate, warring times, still burning brightly and strongly even when everyone else is broken.

An angel on the battlefield.

His angel, Sasuke thinks. His angel.

Eventually, they break apart, and Sasuke shifts his forehead to the dip of her shoulder. He stills. She breathes.

"If I'm still alive in twenty years from today," He starts, slowing to give an empty laugh. "I'll meet you outside the gate where I first left you."

"Twenty years," Sakura repeats, enunciating the syllables individually. She echoes his dry laughter almost ironically, but her half-hearted smile soon slips from her features. A lone raindrop falls from the curl of her lashes, and more follow before she can wipe it away.

In attempt to stop her tears, Sasuke cages her in his arms and kisses her again, hard on the lips, and he knows, she knows it is goodbye. He grasps her thin, trembling hands for the first and final time and fills the sunlight-ribbons in the gaps of her fingers with his own, doing all he can to steady her.

"Twenty years," He reminds her lowly, setting her hands and his unspoken words into her lap.

Then he stands, steps through the doorframe, and does not look back again.

.

.

.

|| _twenty years later_ ||

.

.

.

Two decades pass, but the raven-haired former avenger still remembers their promise. And he hopes that she, the opal-eyed angel-healer, does as well.

Leaning out the window of his small, modest cottage at the outskirts of a verdant forest, Sasuke lifts his irises to the young night sky and its streaks and tints of orange, maroon, and violet, and a half-smile plays its way across his features at the thought that perhaps right then, in that same moment, Sakura could be peering up at the same hues of colors and thinking of him, too, just as he is thinking of her.

He bows his head and chuckles lightly. _The years have made me naïve_, he thinks. _The years have dulled me._

He still thinks of her these days. Sakura and her gentle but strong, flowing movements, melodic laughter, and beautiful smiles. But now, for reasons amongst others, his only memories of her are blurred and distorted, dusty from the time spent in the archives of his mind.

Lifting his chin back to the blanket of darkness and slowly appearing twinkling stars overhead, Sasuke directs his angle of focus to hone in on the waning gibbous moon instead. It is so close to being full and perfect, so close that it hurts, but its last piece is missing, preventing it from being whole. Under its light, Sasuke realizes he is missing his last piece as well—and that piece is her.

Her eyes were like moonlight dancing on river-water, he remembers reflectively, almost sadly, but he blinks the ghosts away.

_"If I'm still alive in twenty years from today," _the words echo in his ears as he thinks back twenty years ago. _"I'll meet you outside the gate where I first left you."_

Today is the anniversary of that promise, and, being one to always stand by his words, Sasuke pushes himself out the window and into the night, with her face in his mind and the taste of her petal-pink lips in his memory. . .

When he arrives in Konoha, even the winds are holding their breaths. The air is chilly—but not bitterly so—and filled with _something_, something he can't seem to put his finger on. _Anticipation,_ he soon decides to himself. The air is thick with anticipation.

Standing a few paces away from the low arch of the welcome-gate, he peers into the village. His eyes sweep every passerby, none of whom seem to notice his presence in the dark shadows. He scopes the area with well-trained precision, glancing over heads of blond, brown, and raven-colored hair, but there is no cherry blossom pink in sight.

Suddenly, a thought occurs to him. Had Sakura forgotten about their promise? Through the years, had she completely forgotten about him?

Then Sasuke glimpses a flash of pink, and the trail of thought vanishes and is replaced with his heartbeat panging painfully in his ears.

The metal gate—slightly rusted metal gate, at that; it, too, has aged over the years—swings on its hinges, creaking softly as it opens, and out comes the form of Haruno Sakura, though an older, more refined version of the girl he used to know.

A smile on her face, Sakura's lightly-placed footfalls lead towards him, and within moments, her body is encased securely in his tight embrace. Burying his head in the crook of her neck, like he had that day, Sasuke lets his eyes close and listens to her breathe, as if the very notion of her being in his arms is not enough proof that she is alive and well.

"I've missed you so, so much," He hears Sakura say, and for some reason, her voice sounds strangled, like she's drowning—like he's drowning her. Sasuke loosens his grip immediately. "Sasuke-kun, you have no idea."

_'I've missed you, too,'_ is what he doesn't say, but he prays that that much she already knows.

His eyes trace the canvas of her face slowly, as if it is his first time truly meeting her. He sees the familiar angles of her brows, rosy flush of her cheeks, slight upturn of pink lips, and the new little crinkles by her opal eyes, surely caused by years and years' worth of smiles and laughter.

Carefully, he reaches forward, bringing a calloused hand to her face to push away a few strands of stray hair. He touches her gently, like one would the most precious of diamonds, and for those few seconds, the brief interphase in his lifetime of darkness, he believes that nothing can shatter their moment.

But a timid voice then calls out, _"Mother?"_ which is followed by a deeper intone of, _"Sakura?"_ and that is when Sasuke's mind goes blank.

He is frozen in place for what feels like several eons but eventually summons every ounce of strength in his body to look over Sakura's shoulder. And he sees them. Her—his throat sears upon the realization—_family._

After seeing her young son's soft smile and tussled brown hair, Sasuke's stomach twists painfully, creating a complicated series of knots in the pit of his gut. The boy, who looks roughly twelve, is waving happily at the both of them, an unknowing grin stretching across the corners of his mouth.

The man beside him appears less welcoming, though behind his small scowl and dip of his eyebrows, his face seems clear and open, honest and caring. Sasuke has never seen him in the entire span of his being, and he doesn't know if that makes it better or worse.

_It doesn't matter,_ he decides, bitterly, and is suddenly overwhelmed with the sudden urge to fold himself away.

Returning his attention back to Sakura, Sasuke watches her carefully, and unsurprisingly, her eyes hold the entire story, which he takes his time to read. Her loneliness, her sorrow, and her struggles—he tries to ignore the large possibility they were caused by him and his leaving—are all evident in her moon-water irises, and the way the man, the stranger, her _husband_, had tried to patch them is as well.

But much more is present. An unwavering presence of guilt is also there.

Sasuke stumbles upon the small shard of emotion almost accidentally but holds it close to his chest as if it holds the solution to his worries and muted pain.

_'I'm sorry,'_ Her eyes seem to say, and although they are inarguably just as beautiful as they have ever been, they seem duller somehow, broken even, like mosaic instead of crystal. _'I still love you.'_

Even in complete awareness of her family watching from the warm light of the village, Sasuke cups her face, bows his head, and brings his lips to her cheek softly, tenderly—longingly, wistfully, just like he had that day, twenty years ago.

And this time, they both accept it is goodbye, perhaps until their next lifetimes, but even so, _'I love you, too,_' is what Sasuke cannot bring himself to say.

Instead, he lets her go, sets her free in one swift movement, pulling away slowly but surely until his arms fall back to his sides. Then he turns, steps back into the darkness, and does not look back even though every bone in his body achingly wishes he would have.

* * *

**a/n: Please, do review! c:**

**[Come visit me on Tumblr — ruukina . tumblr . com!]**


End file.
